A grand villa in one of Auckland’s more expensive suburbs sold at auction for just over $6 million – more than $1.3m above its CV.
Bidding on the six-bedroom house on Shelly Beach Road in St Marys Bay started at a high $4m, with the listing agent, Barfoot & Thompson’s Wayne Guo, saying there six to seven people with budgets $5m or more bidding.
The property, which had been pitched at developers and investors, was on the market at $5.4m, then quickly escalated to the final sale price of $6.252m.
On the market for the first time in 40 years, the house sits is on a 1034sqm site zoned for development and has clear views of both the Waitemata Harbour and the Sky Tower.
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Guo said that the house had been split into in four flats, with the vendor living on the top floor.
“It had potential for multiple uses and we had a mix of people wanting to turn it back into a single home, plus developers and investors.
The villa in St Marys Bay, Auckland, had been split into four flats. Photo / Supplied
“It was zoned mixed housing urban, the size of the land is not common and those amazing views so there were six or seven people bidding with budgets over $5m.”
Guo said that the buyer was an investor who plans to develop it “at some stage”.
“There is huge demand in this area, and the views are unique. The [rental] yield is low, but there are so many developers looking in the central suburbs right on the city fringe.”
Harbour views made the 1034sqm site in St Marys Bay attractive to developers. Photo / Supplied
Agents have told OneRoof there is plenty of demand for up-scale townhouses and apartments in St Marys Bay and neighbouring Ponsonby and Herne Bay, with very few new projects on the horizon.
Bayleys’ Peter Tanner has just started marketing six luxury townhouses next door to the villa, at 44 Shelly Beach Road. The four-level, three-bedroom homes ranging from 200sqm to 266sqm start from $2.95m, and Tanner says the response has been “fantastic”.
“There is very strong demand for townhouses, particularly from locals. They’re downsizing from the $3.5 or $4.5m family home, upgrading to a new property for $3m to $4m and putting some money in the bank,” he said.
Prices for planned townhouses on Shelly Beach Road start $2.95m . Photo / Supplied
“Currently there are no new townhouses [in the area]. That will change in the next few years but right now there just isn’t a lot to choose from.”
While townhouses are in short supply, there has been a steady stream of apartment developments in the area. Construction is underway on 10 luxury apartments at XXXII, at 32 Shelly Beach Road, where prices start at $1.895m, while around the corner on Herne Bay’s Jervois Road, only a handful of 28 apartments are left in Jervois and Lawrence, priced from $1.69m.
In Ponsonby, marketing has begun on The Blake, an 11-apartment block off Ponsonby Road by experienced local developer, Greer Stephens. The one- and two-bedroom apartments, slated for completion in late 2022, start at $900,000 for a one-bedroom and $1.4m for two bedrooms.
Location is everything, with developers prepared to pay almost twice as much per square metre for property in the city compared to further south. The Shelly Beach Road site sold for $6046 per sqm, while a pair of properties in Bean Place, Mount Wellington on a site twice as big with terrace and apartment zoning sold for $6.675m - just $3138 per sqm or just over half the value of the city property.
